If Wishes were Raptors, We'd all BE Steak
by MomotsukiNezumi
Summary: (Cross-posted on Ao3) Or: Wherein a certain Mr. Grady is convinced in the aftermath of the Indominus Rex attack that his girls are still alive, and, like any good parental figure/Not-to-be-eaten-squishy-human, decides to find them, fix them up, and quite possibly convince them to go live in the jungle with him as a tagalong chaperone/not-scaly-raptor-family-member. Uh...Ohana?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is otherwise known on my labtop under the label "In which I Found a beautiful prompt and decided to raise it as my own (after getting permission, of course, as Ao3's _wonderwhatthisbuttondoes_ , the author responsible for this lovely prompt, was kind enough to let me take it in and raise it to be an actual story), because dead!Raptor Squad and no Squad!Owen makes me a Sad Panda."**

 **NOTE #1: I have watched all the films, including 2015's _Jurassic World,_ BUT I have not (not yet, because I definitely plan to when I have time!) read the actual book series. Therefore, any and all usage/depictions of the characters, places, dino-science, etc. in this story are set in a post- _Jurassic World_ ending _AU_ that adheres partly to film!verse logic, and partly to whatever my own tea-soaked brain can come up with after ideas hatched once I began reading so many lovely stories for this fandom. **

**NOTE #2: No dead raptors here. Absolutely none at all. I don't care how insanely ridiculous and non-canonical it is, this (and any _Jurassic Park/Jurassic World_ fanwriting, really) is still set in a universe where you can have dinosaurs cloned and created from mosquito-filled amber (never mind the 6.8 million year DNA half-life expiration date getting handwaved), as well as the DNA of tree frogs, cuttlefish, and human beings. I pay no tribute to that strange thing that most sensible people call _logic,_ nor the equally wily beast called _Canon_.**

 **Note #3: As with all of my stories, updates are over 85% likely to be sporadic and consist of either really long, or really short chapter uploads, as I have a massive amount of schoolwork and side-projects to deal with over 95% of the time and can't always get time to write. Please keep this in mind, as I will do my best to update when I can, and make it worth your while to read.**

 **OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I have not, currently do not, and undoubtedly will never, ever own anything pertaining to Mr. Michael Chrichton's glorious _Jurassic Park_ literary works, nor the also amazing _Jurassic Park_ film franchise. Please don't feed me to the _Mosasaurus_ , the second set of terrifying sharp teeth in the upper palate would mean no escape from becoming a human-sized appetiser.**

 **WARNING: Violence, foul language, death scenes (not of main characters!), detailed descriptions of blood, gore, and dinosaur hunting scenarios. Dubious understanding (internet, don't fail me now!) of _Jurassic Park_ and _Jurassic World_ dino-science and (what is likely to be butchering of, unfortunately) actual biological science. Please prepare yourself for possibly squicky moments!**

* * *

Working with an injured human often proved, no matter if one ranged from being a simple good Samaritan trying to keep someone alive while calling for help to a fully-qualified surgeon about to perform risky open-heart heart surgery or beyond, to be a rather trying experience, especially given the varying degrees of pain and damage involved, the medical supplies available, and the injured party's willingness and ability to cooperate.

Working with a velociraptor, was, as one could easily imagine, quite a bit harder, in no small part due to the viciously-sharp sickle claw, the equally dangerous mouthful of sharp teeth and enhanced senses, or even the simple fact that the average raptor weighed in at roughly several hundred pounds and had millions of years of ingrained killer instinct to use in combination with the kind of predatory intelligence that allowed for opening doors, setting traps, and solving every last puzzle they had ever been given.

Suffice to say, it was still a far cry better than when he was working with Hoskins.

Owen Grady had been called many things over the course of his life, including "a lunatic with no self-preservation instincts!" (his mother still claimed his decision to join the Navy and work with dolphins for underwater minefield location was the seed that turned into both an ulcer and the reason for her aspirin-stuffed medicine cabinet), an insanely hard worker (and "Not in a good way, Owen!", as Barry was able to recount a dozen instances of him staying overnight at the raptor enclosure during the first month to reassure the pack that their all-too-breakable human Alpha had not decided to abandon them and that Blue was not allowed to usurp his position, even with the occasional ambush thrown in), "A complete failure of a dating possibility" (Claire would let go of the Board Shorts incident when the Mosasaur grew legs instead of flippers and walked on land), and, fueled by the concerned whispers of lab workers who had caught him sneaking into the raptor hatchery at night to watch over the eggs, "The Raptor Whisperer". To his girls, the scaly, fierce, terrifyingly smart apex predators that haunted the dreams of Alan Grant even today, he was "Alpha", the raptor-who-wasn't that had hand-raised them in both his home and the eventually built enclosure, bottle-fed them pureed meat when their infant teeth had yet to fully sharpen enough to rip through an entire pig, taught them a hundred and one tricks and commands and had the scars to prove it. He was the one who had brought them up with both affection and stern teachings, rode with them into battle, and had watched as their world had torn itself apart within all of a few moments, and rewritten with missing pieces _(pack gone dead no no no)_ that same night.

Now, however, the lone remaining dinosaur trainer and handler of the ravaged _Jurassic World_ theme park had found himself with a new title: impromptu field medic.

Surveying what he had to work with, Owen could only offer equal parts mental cursing and thanks.

On one hand, they were alive. Beaten, bruised, exhausted, with more injuries than should ever be for their species in this day and age _(especially considering how few actual threats they had compared to the rest of the park)_ , but they were _alive_.

On the other hand, they were hurt. Owen still marveled that they had made it, given the circumstances _(don't think about it don't think about it)_. He still could see the explosion from the launched missile as the InGen soldier fired directly at Charlie, smell the horrific scent of roasted flesh from the restaurant incinerator when Delta had been thrown in, hear the sickening _crunch_ as the _Indominus'_ jaws closed tight, a flesh-and-bone bear-trap of too many teeth around Echo's struggling body before flinging her away like a child's toy...

 _Nope, not gonna think about it. Definitely not._

He wrapped another round of salve-smeared bandages around Charlie's burnt, scaly skin, wondering grimly what the chances were that infection wouldn't set in. Indecision could be just as dangerous as the actual injuries. If he left her skin exposed, the wound could "breathe" and might heal faster, but the winds that often plagued the island weather would carry the scent of blood and weakened flesh for miles, a beacon for any of the escaped carnivorous dinosaurs that had gotten loose during the initial havoc. They couldn't afford any extra dangers. Owen may have worked with some of Earth's most lethal land-bound predators for over half a decade now, but he knew all too well that the gun he'd taken during the initial park destruction would be next to useless if any of the meat-eating former exhibits descended on his home en mass.

 _No, no, don't think about that either. Just...just focus._

Focus; yes, he could do that. Focus on what was in front of him right now, not the grisly what-ifs of the potential future. They were here, they were still alive and breathing _(he refused to think too deeply on Charlie's wheezing gasps for air, Echo's rattling cough, Blue and Delta's pained hisses)_ and as long as he was still alive and breathing, they had a chance. A slim, pathetic little wisp of a chance, but it was still there _and he was not letting go, dammit._

Smear burn salve on Charlie and Delta. Put antiseptic and bandages on Echo's bite-marks after cleaning out excess debris. Put antibacterial ointment on Blue's cuts and scrapes and hope _(not pray, not for this, who would answer for what most likely were considered abominations anyway?)_ that the discoloration on her sleek, gunmetal-and-navy hide was not due to cracked ribs or internal bleeding creating surface bruises. Stuff everyone full of painkillers until they're woozy up to their eyeballs, so that Delta would stop trying to gnaw off the bandages and Charlie would stop making those pitiful little crooning hisses that sounded like she was a five-day-old hatchling begging for food again and he could breathe for a moment before the guilt crushed him _(should've known should've anticipated this should've left the island should've could've would've shut up shut up SHUT UP)._

Weary eyes looked at the supplies on hand. Antiseptic creams, antibacterial ointments, packaged syringes and over-the-counter medicines and syrups, countless bandages and swabs, boxes of surgical gloves, bottles of rubbing alcohol, tweezers, a bag crammed full of every bottle of the strongest dinosaur-friendly painkillers he could find from the vet's office _(abandoned, door lying on the ground a dozen feet from where it was ripped off. No humans in sight. Coats and jackets left on waiting room chairs, they left in a hurry. Blood and glass on the floor, footprints lead outside. Two windows smashed open. Did one of the Dimorphodons fly in by mistake?)_. Owen had taken everything that looked it like might even be remotely useful, including a dental equipment bag from the park's staff-only hospital, a surgical scalpel, several large, battery-operated heating pads taken from the abandoned incubation rooms at the labs, and an restaurant defibrillator that had been part of the standard help services available.

 _Better too much than too little, I guess._

The mixing bowl's contents had fouled again. Frowning at the bloody water he'd just rinsed his hands in, he walked out onto the dock, bowl in hand, and tossed it out into the lake, watching the thin, web-like strands of red vanish as they mixed together. The bowl had emptied, but for a few moments, the water was murky and churning as fish loomed up out of the depths to examine the source of the odd smell.

 _Need to remember the fish for later_ , he noted to himself. A supply drop to the island was highly unlikely, given the evacuation of the entire park earlier, and scavenging food and water from the abandoned stores would only be viable during daylight hours, when he was at least able to see if something was hunting him. Fish would offer protein, Omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and a way to possibly keep Echo from chewing off her bandages due to the promise of something to kill and eat. Before the carnage caused by the _Indominous_ incident, he'd fished when he had the time to, the act a hobby, a cheap and easy way to mentally de-stress from the exhausting, constant pressures of maintaining Alpha status in a den of carnivorous pack members; now, it was a potential survival method, and possibly one of the few ways to get a somewhat steady supply of nutrients once the park ran out of unexpired packaged goods.

 _Need more bait._ He looked at the empty bucket as he picked it up off the end of the dock, the grimy quarter-inch of dirty water at the bottom seeming to mock him. He looked back at the bungalow, staring into the nearest window and watching for a flutter in the drawn curtains. In his mind's eye, Owen was jarringly revisited by flashes of squealing, live pigs, whole and pink and fat, running in fear from sickle-claws and razor-sharp teeth as four sets of feet stalked their prey with the lazy grace of a predator toying with their food.

 _Need **lots** more bait._

He began to put the bucket back down; his hands involuntarily spasmed and the bucket dropped out of his grip, rolling across the wooden surface with a clatter that, somehow, suddenly, sounded much too loud. Owen looked at his hands for a moment, staring for a second at the fine tremors wracking the bloody digits. _Need to stop that. Can't give them a reason to doubt me again._

Trembling in animals, when viewed by predators, generally implied a weakness of some sort, and after the fiasco with the _Indominus_ , he was unwilling to provide another potential reason for them to distrust him. Yes, they had returned _(and he would remember the sweet ache of that reunion in his bones for the rest of his days)_ , but he knew now _(no, not now, I always knew, I just didn't understand)_ that their relationship was not an invincible structure; like any other, it had its points where it could break, and where it could mend.

He was not willing to let it break again, _ever._

He opened a bottle of water from the scavenged rations shoved into his backpack, dribbling a few capfuls onto a _(relatively clean, but what did it matter? Raptors don't care about your stupid kitchen implements)_ dishtowel and scrubbing his hands clean until the skin felt raw. Taking a rock from the shore, he tied the bloodied towel around it, swung it over his head once, twice, then let it fly through the air and into the lake, sinking down after a moment. When he couldn't see the dirty white cloth _(ghostly now_ , he thinks, _it was a ghost that sank and I drowned it)_ at all anymore, he headed back inside, boots laced up tight enough to require a crowbar to pry them off his feet and ankles ( _can't take them off yet, what if I need to go out and get more supplies? Charlie needs more burn salve and Echo's still wheezing. Maybe I need to get a humidifier?_ and then he doubles over, fist buried in his own midsection from the sick urge to both cry and _laugh_ , because who had ever heard of using steam to fix a genetically-modified hybrid predator's possibly pierced lungs?).

Dimly, his mind registered the sound of rain falling outside as he closed the door and shoved a towel back into place under it, but he paid it no more attention than a lion would pay a blade of grass. There was a roof overhead, and he'd already boarded up the windows and put plastic over them _(can't have the windows smashing open, glass everywhere and panicking everyone)_ , and jammed over a dozen thick towels _(taken from the park's hotel suites, no one was coming back to stay anyhow, so what was the harm? No one would want to stay in a five-star hotel when over a hundred of the last guests to check in got eaten before they could even come collect their luggage. No one wants to hear about the whirlpool Jacuzzi area, or the fully-stocked bar, or gourmet meals when they were just as likely to end up on the menu as the room service)_ into every crack or door seam to act as extra insulation. Even with the park's electrical generators offline for the foreseeable future in the wake of the dinosaur rampage and island evacuation, they were unlikely to suffer from a temperature drop or a moderate weather change.

He stared at the mess of his bungalow, taking in the sight of the four sleeping forms taking up the vast majority of his floor and bed. Blue had claimed the lion's share of the mattress, hissing softly at Echo when the other raptor had tried to climb on, but allowing the lower half of the bed to be used so long as she could claim the blanket and pillow. Delta had seized no less than four of the blankets Owen dragged out of his closet and arranged them into a makeshift nest a foot away from her sisters to curl in, arranging herself nose to tail. After several moments of soft chuffing and hisses, she moved over just enough to let Charlie crawl into the space between the nest and Owen's bed, effectively letting the youngest pack member squash between her older siblings. The air smelled sharp, almost tangy, overripe with the scent of sweat, blood, and antiseptic.

Owen, as he'd expected, was left to pick a spot in the bungalow to sleep in with the remaining bedding, and took the opportunity to set up a makeshift bed in the corner out of the leftover blankets and towels and a handful of shirts layered together for a pillow. Lying on his side and turning his head so that he could maintain eye contact, he lay down in the dark, the sheathed end of his knife digging painfully into his hip from where it was being pushed against the floor.

One hand held the handle, fingers wrapped around the length of metal and leather in a loose grip. A single pull up, and it would be free. His free hand reached from under the beach towel he was using for bedcovers (a little ripped, but it came from the Mosasaur's gift shop, so it was plenty big enough) and pulled the towel up to his chin, partly for warmth and partly for concealment.

The girls had all hatched as fully lethal life forms, armed to the teeth for a war fought millions of years ago, aided by a ravenous hunger and an even more ravenous intellect to match. He was hopeful that things would improve between them all with time and effort, but if things became too rough...

Owen was hopeful, but he wasn't stupid.

 _Besides,_ he thought, watching Blue's single visible golden eye from where she peered out from his bed _, a raptor's got to have their own sickle-claw, right?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Happy Leap Year Day! I promise the next chapter will be longer, I just needed to get this out before it ate my brain.**

 **Please forgive my meagre understanding of how to clean up fish for eating. I usually get my fish from the market already prepared (or have a relative clean it for me), so all of the know-how presented here came from the Internet, cobbled together with what little bits and pieces I can remember from watching relatives clean up their own catch from fishing trips years ago.**

 **NOTE #1: The fish shown here are, in real life, found in Costa Rican lakes, along with alligator gar (which, as they apparently can grow upwards of 7 feet long apiece, our clever girls probably might take to like hunting for fun and snacks, if Owen can get them to enjoy fish instead of the chubby pigs that were sent in as part of pack dynamic training).**

 **NOTE #2: As I am not a certified paleontologist and honestly have no idea if raptors can actually swim (they don't exactly look built for water...), I'm going to assume they can handle shallow water to some extent, and that their long, gorgeous tails might work similarly to help direct and propel them through water if they do, in fact, swim. Given that the velociraptors of the _Jurassic Park_ universe are actually _Deinonychus_ in all but name, and that remains of said dinosaur have been found in deltas, lagoons, and tropical/sub-tropical forest areas, the idea of Owen's girls being at least somewhat physically equipped for a swampy or floodplain-like habitat with lots of water just makes sense to me.**

 **NOTE #3: Though the mighty internet tells me it _is_ possible, I don't recommend resharpening blades of any sort with the bottoms of ceramic mugs. With no personal experience for backup, I have no idea if it actually can work, but for Owen's sake, I'm going to blindly assume that it does, because I'm 99.999% certain that there are no professional-grade whetstones or professional knife sharpeners in business at the island for him to go to. Also, the Internet told me (so don't take it too seriously) that, among their already commendable senses, raptors apparently have excellent olfactory senses. I imagine this makes veterinary checkups at the park rather difficult, since antiseptics and other hospital smells tend to be rather strong for humans, so for a raptor, it's probably much worse. Blue would probably hate it. **

**WARNING: If cleaning fish grosses anyone out, I advise you to be prepared for nastiness, please!**

* * *

There were chunks of fish still clinging to Owen's fingers as he hauled the newest catch out of the muddy lake water. Now, more than ever, he was grateful for the fact that, despite the overall damage done to the Park as a whole, his tiny Sunrio bungalow was far enough away to have made it out unscathed by the carnage, fishing equipment included.

Removing hooks and attached homemade lures from the newly-caught prey was comforting in both the familiarity and sense of stability it provided. The doomed collection of rainbow trout gasped, heaving for air that wouldn't come, scales glistening in the sun in a metallic sheen of multiple colours as he pulled out his knife. Tan fingers held down the first of the squirming bodies firmly, the sharpened edge glittering like a slice of silver as he selected his first quarry.

The setup on the picnic table out front looked almost comically like a horror film gone hilariously wrong. The plastic bag he'd put into the laundry basket was filled to the brim with frigid, ice chunk-filled water _(he'd taken it from the nearest restaurant's kitchen refridgerator, but what did it matter? It would all melt anyway, the electricity was out and no one else was there to use it)_ to help keep the fish from spoiling in the humid island air. To the side was a plastic bait bucket to throw any unwanted parts in as he cleaned the pair he'd selected to eat for himself. The much larger remaining portion of caught fish _(hopefully they'll take to fish as well as they did pigs)_ flopped around in the basket's crowded interior, fins splashing the gradually sun-warmed water everywhere as he cut scales off in short, quick movements, moving upwards from the tail to the gills with welcomed muscle memory.

The pectoral and dorsal fins quivered weakly under his hands for a while, then finally went limp in death as he silently scraped away glistening, almost filmy scales with the sharp edge of his knife, the blade freshly-cleaned with leftover dish soap and and a firm scrubbing in water boiled on the camp stove. The skin underneath was slowly peeled away with a pair of pliers from his toolbox, sterilized in the same manner as the knife, and then the trout was rinsed clean of any remaining scales or other residue with a bit of water from the plastic bottle he'd allotted for himself for the day. Grimacing slightly as the water dripped off the corpse to collect on the ground _(need to save your water, Grady, there's no damn water treatment facility running when the whole park's been evacuated and the power's knocked_ _out)_ , he twisted the cap back onto the bottle and turned back to his work.

Bit by bit, the bucket filled with leftovers: strips of slick, slimy skin, tiny bits of shimmering, translucent scales, pinches of flesh clinging to the edges of thin, ghost-like bones, slippery chunks of guts that gleamed wetly in the morning sun. A thin, syrupy mess of blood congealed like runny lingonberry jam at the bottom of the plastic container as he decapitated each of his fish and let the blood drain out. Owen wondered if he should keep the remnants to turn into homemade chum, and see if it could attract more prey. At the very least, adding bits of leftover fish to his lures might help garner the attention of an alligator gar or two, and he knew that if he managed to get any sort of positive reception to the addition of fish to a raptor diet, bigger catches than a basket of rainbow trout would be needed.

 _Maybe if the rest of the park's still clear, I can check the Mosasaur exhibit for any leftover frozen sharks. It's nothing like hunting live prey, but at least there would be something to snack on, so long as they haven't started thawing out and rotting now that there's no electricity to power the freezers. Protein, Vitamin A, plenty of Iron..._

A thought struck him as he finished, and the unnerving edge of it was sharp enough that it almost disguised the sharpness of the knife as he cut off a set of fins close enough to his fingers for the edge to graze his thumb. A muffled hiss accompanied the realization, and he rearranged his hands accordingly. _Well_ , he conceded grimly _, Wu better have worked out how to avoid mercury poisoning in dinosaurs when he went tinkering in his labs, because if he didn't..._

The thought didn't bear thinking about. Thoughts of vanished appetites, lusterless scaly hides, and dulling raptor gazes filled his mind for a sickening moment, and he shoved the thoughts away with a harsh _slam_ of the knife's point into the wooden picnic table's surface.

 _Dammit._

Sighing inwardly, he yanked the blade out of the wood, less concerned with the deep gouge in the wood than he was with whether or not the edge had been damaged. He didn't have a usable whetstone at the bungalow to resharpen the blade with, and trying to find something else to use as a substitute would be next to impossible.

Considering his options as he stared at the edge, he sighed as he spotted a long, though thankfully shallow, nick at the end. _Well, there goes my coffee mug, then._

Still, if the alternative was the blade being damaged (and therefore less useful), he could make the necessary sacrifice. _It's not as if I need coffee to stay awake nowadays, anyway. The threat of possible impending disembowelment by dinosaur claws is still at FUBAR-levels out here, especially since no one back inside can go hunting properly yet when they're injured and drugged up to the gills with painkillers._

Decision made, he took a moment to mourn the loss of his favorite mug, and then another to put the fish-filled laundry basket and the offal-filled scraps bucket under the picnic table to help keep the ice from melting in the heat, before heading back into the bungalow, one eye keeping a lookout to see if anyone else was awake yet. Years of experience had taught him that, if woken early, Blue would snap her teeth dangerously close to his hands, Delta would snarl and flex her toe claws, Echo would curl into a ball and lash her tail out if approached, and Charlie would emit a high-pitched piping cry that tended to waver between heart-wrenchingly sad, and ear-splittingly loud. There were still several smaller scars on his hands from when they were younger and he'd begun establishing daytime schedules, starting with morning wakeup drills _(Blue always did like to use his fingers for teething rings, and when she was grumpy after waking up she'd nip him for rousing her from the incubators for feeding time. Once her teeth grew in it was less funny to see her formerly gum-filled jaws test out their new teeth when he'd just promised the hospital staff he wouldn't show up for at least two more days, but all babies liked chewing things, right?)._

The scent of antiseptic hadn't fully left yet, and Owen's nose wrinkled in silent distaste as the acrid tang burned his nostrils when he opened one of the kitchen cupboards. _Ugh, hospital stench gets into everything. Hopefully it hasn't sunk into the bedding or anything, Blue'll blow a gasket if the mattress smells too strong._

Pulling out his favorite coffee mug, Owen grasped it by the handle and silently shut the cupboard door, closing it slowly to help muffle the potential noise, eyes darting back and forth to keep the bungalow's other occupants in view.

Blue let out a soft whuffling sound, Echo snapping her jaws in a manner vaguely similar to a sleeping human smacking their lips; Owen slowly froze, gaze zeroing in on the four forms sprawled out on the other side of the bungalow.

 _Stay asleep, stay sleep, stay asleep..._

Delta snorted, turning her head to the side. Charlie curled closer, tail wriggling slightly.

 _Stay asleep, stay asleep..._

The air, for a moment, seemed impossibly frozen. At the back of his mind, Owen took note of the number of steps between the door and his current stance by the cupboard, the different breathing pitches of the four additional bodies before him, and the approximate amount of time it would take him to cross that distance as quietly as possible when accounting for the heaviness of his boots.

Blue snuffled a little, then turned over on the mattress; Owen stared back silently as a single golden eye looked at him blankly.

A moment, then two, passed, and then the oldest of the raptors blinked languidly, eye still staring at nothing, before closing again, and Owen fought the urge to release a sigh. _Still sleeping the painkillers off, then. She always did blink a lot when she was tired from checkups._

After several long moments of waiting to ensure that there was no danger of anyone getting up in a foul mood due to simply standing there and breathing, he took another long look at the remainder of the pack before carefully slipping out the door, shutting it silently. The painkillers he'd given them were noticeably wearing off, given their restless movements, and when they finally stopped working entirely, Owen didn't want to return to the bungalow without a resharpened blade at hand or a brace of alligator gar per raptor to placate.

Settling down at the picnic table, he held the mug upside down and drew the blade against the grain at an angle, going through the repetitive motions with relieved muscle memory. _Draw five, turn over, draw five, turn over, draw four, turn over, draw four, turn over..._

By the time he'd reduced it down to a single draw, the blade was notably sharper, and he took a moment to offer silent thanks to Barry for teaching him the trick. _Granted, it's not the best job,_ he noted, studying the edge critically, _but it'll do in a pinch._

The job done, he knelt down under the picnic table and examined the laundry basket. _Not as cold, but there's still some ice in there. The fish are slower, they must've used up a lot of oxygen panicking. Need to change the water soon._

A cursory sniff of the water made his stomach roll for a split second, and he sighed as he peered closer and realised that several of the fish, in their panicked state, had fouled the water. _Not fresh enough, then._

He could understand why. Dinosaur or not, no one wanted to eat contaminated food if they could help it.

An idea skittered into view at the forefront of his mind, and he seized it, turning toward his next course of action. Pulling out his strongest fishing rod, the bucket of scraps, one of the fish from the laundry basket, and a suitable hook, he turned toward the shore of the lake, grasping the bowie knife handle and tapping it idly against his hip as ideas percolated.

 _Hope the girls will learn to like alligator gar. I've got plenty of bait._


	3. Chapter 3

**Aaaaaand we're back, with more dark humor and awful post-film shenanigans for your reading pleasure. Today's highlights in this sorry mess of a story chapter include dragging several of the more glaring inaccuracies of the _Jurassic World's_ aquatic juggernaut through the mud via exposition from our favorite surrogate raptor-dad Owen, the girls finally waking up and interacting with Owen (and they are most assuredly _not_ happy), and of course, Owen's valiant attempt to introduce fish to the diet of a primarily carnivorous raptors because Wu was too much a **** to leave out the lysine deficiency in the park's new generations of genetically-modified crowd-pleasers...I mean, dinosaurs.**

 **NOTE #1: I'm not sure if I gave justice to the reunion here between Owen and the girls, but hopefully it works. Writing for sentient hybrid dinosaurs is definitely not my forte...**

 **NOTE #2: What Internet research I did for the fishing chunk of this chapter told me that alligator gar tend to prefer "dead lakes", backwater areas, or such spots as swamps, marshes, etc. where their preferred hunting style of stalk and ambush works best, their ideal spawning grounds are a little more easily available, and, thanks to their vascularized swim bladders, they can outlast less prepared fish when the oxygen levels might drop from surface clogging due to algae, moss, debris, etc.. In later months approaching fall, they also apparently like deep river bends near relatively shallow pools, congregating in the deeper water and being more easily noticeable by human eyes in more shallow water.**

 **Please remember that fishing for a gar of any kind on your own like Owen does is inadvisable and quite dangerous (they all are rather heavy, they get _big,_ and their teeth are super sharp!), and is done here for story purposes only!**

* * *

Like any dinosaur trainer that was, is, or would be employed by the park, Owen been curious when he'd come to the island, and done his best to research his field of study as much as possible, expanding on his knowledge with what he learned when working with his girls. Though his primary area of expertise was the handling, training, and maintenance in combination with behavioral study of the park's issued _Velociraptor_ pack only, he'd known far, far before he'd gotten his first email concerning the job offer that learning anything and everything potentially useful in his current situation could potentially be beneficial in the long run. Before he'd worked at the park, he'd worked with dolphins, and although a pod was not precisely the same as a pack, there had been a few relationship values to learn that translated reasonably well into raptor handling. Even now, years and scars and too many emotions and responsibilities to count later, he'd kept them, pulling them forth from the recesses of his mind as needed.

At the moment, he was adhering to one of the most basic of those values: _do your best to ensure the wellbeing of those around you._

The fish he'd found spoiled in the laundry basket had found one final use in their dead, fouled state: impromptu additions to the bait bucket. With his new idea firmly in mind, Owen took the lot, dumped them into the bucket, and used them to help chum the water when he went out on the lake and into the nearby river feeding new water into it. Up the river only a little ways, the water was slow-running and dark as the lake surface, and finding a hole to fish was none too difficult, thanks to the bends and dips of the river forming little "pockets" of sunken areas where sediment and mud rose and fell.

True to form, several scavenging species had emerged from the depths when he'd disturbed the water with the offal tidbits, and with them, the alligator gar slowly followed suit, emerging from the depths to stalk and ambush the prey that came in search of the potential food source that was being rained from the surface. With a huge amount of patience, even more effort, and more than a little sheer dumb luck, he'd managed to lure in a single alligator gar _(smaller than average, but good testing material for the girls to try out anyway)_ and then the battle commenced.

Setting the hook had taken seemingly an age, as pulling back when there were several hundred yards of line let out for safety's sake meant an extraordinary amount of strength needed to be expended to make sure both his quarry and his fishing gear didn't get plunged into the river. Keeping the gar from rushing away to the safety of reeds, rocks, and even the other side of the hole meant many bouts of pulling, then letting the tension out of the line, then repeating the act until finally, _finally_ , when his arms were screaming from strain and his fingers felt raw, the huge fish finally shuddered and slowed in exhaustion. He'd managed, with a good deal of difficulty thanks to his own exhaustion and the slipperiness of his catch, to slowly haul the gar into the boat and, with what felt like the last dregs of strength he had, cut the head off with his knife with sharp, ruthless efficiency, letting it bleed out into the now emptied bait bucket to dump into the lake later.

Stopping just long enough to greedily drain a bottle and a half of water, he'd taken off back down the river and back across the lake, knowing the painkillers wouldn't last much longer and that, if he had any hope of making his catch edible, it needed to be taken back fresh. As the boat hurtled across the water, skipping occasionally like a stone across the surface, the bucket sloshed a river of blood into the bottom of the vessel, splattering Owen's boots and splashing him in uneven bursts with each especially rough _jolt_ from the boat's impact against water.

The air was muggy and still, vaguely swollen with mosquitoes, as he trekked back slowly to the bungalow, boots and socks sodden with lake water, shorts clinging uncomfortably in a way that suggested future itching. His hands twinged painfully as skin rubbed up against the jagged edges of numerous hard, enamel-like scales coating flesh like a natural coat of armor. The low, meaty _shhhhhhhh_ as the bottom half of his catch was dragged along the ground reverberated with each soggy step through the grass and mud. Out on the water, his small boat bobbed on the surface, looking akin to a child's toy in bathwater as the sun grew fat and red with age.

Exhausted in more ways than he could name, Owen sank down into one of the lawn chairs out front with an almost obscene groan of relief, rubbing his temples with the pads of his sore fingers to stave off some of the discomfort from the headache he'd acquired while spending the morning, as well as a good chunk of the afternoon, fishing.

 _In retrospect,_ he mused ruefully, _maybe fishing on the lake without more water was a bad idea._

But then, what _wasn't_ a bad idea, nowadays? He was living with four of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, armed only with a bowie knife and what brains he could lay claim to.

Taking a moment to drink the remaining contents of the second of two water bottles he'd taken when he'd gone fishing, Owen went to look over his catch: a single alligator gar, rinsed of mud and dirt with lake water, almost five feet long now that it was bereft of it's head, and, with luck, a decent meal. He'd offer it to the girls first. If they didn't take to it, he could eat it and use any leftovers for more bait.

Giving a slow sigh, he dunked his knife into the lake, then wiped it dry with a towel on the picnic table, content to sterilize it later.

Straightening himself upright, he slipped his knife back into it's holster, then approached the bungalow. A moment was taken to regain composure before opening the door, then stepping back several feet away and staring intently inside.

Four pairs of eyes, glittering in all the manner of the colours of flame, stared back.

Owen stepped forward, slowly, with no hesitation. Both hands were held out with palms open, eye contact held steadily. In nature, initiating and maintaining eye contact would be considered a challenge, but here, at the end of all things that had been, he knew that the case was different.

Here, he could look at his girls and _see_ them, as they could look back and see _him._

As he knew would be the case, Blue came first, stepping out into the fading light of the late afternoon sun with her head high and her sickle claw stabbing into the earth, her only sign of agitation. Delta, teal colouring washing into a green tinge reminiscent of an infant Charlie in the sun, followed out after her, stopping just behind her shoulder and flicking her long tail back and forth, the tip of it slapping into Echo's legs as she and Charlie fanned out the flank their sisters from behind. Charlie looked from behind the wall of her siblings to stare at Owen, eyes wide, and the lump in his throat was sudden and painful.

With no small amount of difficulty, he ignored it, as well as the urge to do something as insurmountably stupid as to reach out a hand to touch them, assure himself with physical certainty that they were truly there _(real, real, real, alive, alive, alive)_. Their colouring was better, they stood tall and steady, and their eyes still gleamed with that unsettling awareness that marked them as living, breathing _death._ He could ask for no better in their recovery, given the circumstances, and he forced himself to think of it, remember it, as a positive part of the situation.

 _Not like you could keep them in the nest forever, Grady._

There was a long, unnerving moment, Blue's expression unwavering as solid marble, Owen refusing to look away. His heart thumped almost painfully in his chest; he focused on calming down, knowing they could likely smell the sudden change in pace. The urge to tap his knife against his thigh, palm the handle and dance the blade between his fingers, burned like a brand, but he shoved it down, far, far down, down to where he could deal with it when he wasn't about to gain or lose everything that mattered anymore.

The thought came, sudden, swift, and retreating just as quickly, that if they chose to reject him now, he wouldn't be capable of surviving it. Everything that had happened, everything that would be, and if Blue refused _(and they would fall in line, all of them, even if Charlie begged and no matter how much Delta snarled or Echo shrieked)_ he wouldn't be able to go back. He _couldn't_ go back to being just Owen _(just human just alone)_ again, couldn't fathom thinking of _no-pack-no-pack-no-pack_ after over half a decade living with golden eyes keeping watch in the dark, heads that pricked up at sound of _Eyes on me_ that had become code for _safe_ and _pack_ and _I'm here_ , of the claws just as ready to rip into his flesh as that of the pigs he gave them turning to the claws that had fought off a living, breathing nightmare for him.

He didn't want to be alone again. _But it isn't all my decision, is it?_

In the end, he was the alpha, but his girls were the ones who had the choice now, and he could only wait to see if it would be in his favour. He'd patched them up, but if they were to stand on their own, they had to choose if they wanted him beside them.

He waited, knife still sheathed. Delta's tail flickered in a blur of movement.

He waited, Charlie letting out soft, almost inaudible chuffs as she stared at him with eyes too young to belong to her.

He waited, Echo's finger claws flexing slightly as she stared to her sisters, then at Owen, then back again.

He waited, took a deep breath, and staunchly refused to pray that he wasn't wrong.

"Eyes on me."

Blue _moved._

Owen wrestled against the instinctive, ingrained urge to reach for his knife as Blue suddenly shoved herself into his field of vision like a too-close phantom; his fingers twitched, he cursed inwardly at the self-aborted motion _(in the end, he wouldn't be able to use it anyway, so where else would it go save empty air or turned back into his own flesh for daring to try?),_ and then his throat was being nudged by reptilian scale. A small break between flesh was noted, his mind filling in the blanks as he realized, dimly, as if from far away, that she was nudging his throat, bumping against his Adam's apple, rubbing against the sides of his neck, the hollow of his throat, and he felt something sore in his chest relax, though he knew logically he should be at least _feeling_ like panicking at having the razor-sharp teeth so close to his carotid arteries.

For a small, small moment, he stood utterly frozen, trying to process the sensation of what had happened, and then there was an impatient rumble from somewhere around the vicinity of his chest, and before he could stop himself, he reached out and his hands made contact with the top of Blue's head.

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Barry was muttering _You've finally lost it, mon ami_ but Owen decided that if this meant he was crazy, so be it. The slow, deep rumbling _(purr,_ his mind insisted _, it's purring, you damn moron)_ that came trickling out in streams as he stood there was _worth it._

Within moments, as if Blue had somehow signaled a universal "all-clear", he was bracketed on all sides by moving, scaly hides, claws snagging his shirt like they'd done when they were still small enough to be carted around in a blanket-filled box. Charlie, at his hip, crooning as she nuzzled his side. Echo at his back, claws wound so deep into his shirt's fabric that he knew it would tear if she moved away. Delta, nudging his shoulder and trying to claim attention from the hand that wasn't currently placed against the top of Blue's head as if permanently cemented there.

Owen felt warm, giddy, vaguely drunk, a smile pulling at his mouth as if trying to rip his face in half.

 _Home,_ every last nudge and bump and hiss and flick of a tail. _Home,_ eyes in all the shades of fire and claws more ancient that a mountain of ivory. _Home,_ the insistent, relentless cardiac repetition, entangled, interwoven, of _Blue-Charlie-Delta-Echo_ that became _Echo-Delta-Charlie-Blue_ and back again until the pounding in his chest matched the pounding in his ears.

Owen laughed. Blue bumped her head against his chin _(shut up)_ and his jaw ached with the pain of returned fondness.

* * *

The _Mosasaur_ was unnervingly _observant_ , Owen had noted when he'd first visited the prehistoric terror of the deep. The large, dark eyes glittered with something eerily close to raptor intelligence, sharp as a katana's blade, each one larger than a grown man's fist, and disturbingly alien-like. They tracked the sharks offered during feeding times like a cat staring at a caged pet bird, waiting until the prey was within ambushing range before striking like a bolt of lightning. For all that the park's more "fair weather friend" investors complained that, over time, the enourmous aquatic reptile was simply going to become a larger, scalier dinosaur version of a certain killer whale attraction, Owen knew all too well that the hulking creature lurking in the depths of the lagoon was no normal sea predator.

Wu and his scientists had assembled, for all intents and purposes, a full-fledged Leviathan, maw populated full to bursting with teeth and ever gaping in that universal gesture of _hunger_.

In the early days of the Mosasaur Exhibit's opening to the public eye, the stadium had been crammed full to bursting with spectators, wide-eyed and gleeful about the prehistoric carnage that had been brought into existence for their paid entertainment. Children and adults alike screamed in terrified delight upon witnessing the devouring of one of humanity's more commonly feared apex predators as if the sharks were no more than table scraps deemed worthy of attention by the family housecat. Waves bursting into existence like a crate of firecrackers going off, the water churning into a fine froth like the foamed milk top of an overpriced latte as a huge, unnatural shadow surged up from the depths of the lagoon to claim a new prize. Every time, eerie in its clockwork brutality, frail human ears took in the brutal _snap_ of the powerful jaws as the many sets of teeth closed tight around the squirming, flailing body _(it wasn't until later that they were delivered dead on arrival, after all, but what choice was there? Too much hassle to bring in live prey for a split second before it gets chomped on like a starving wolf with a downed moose, and the blood that sprayed everywhere took forever to clean out of the stadium seats, not to mention all the rich soccer moms that complained about their designer purses getting ruined and spoiled bratty kids shouting that their cellphones got all wet when they tried to ignore the "No Filming" policy and the overprotective parents with the "Your gorefest of a dinosaur show gave my son nightmares!" speech)_ and swallowed it down like a heron did to a mouthful of frogs or fish...

Now, though, the park's most noted aquatic attraction could be remembered for something else: a slow, inevitable death.

With the evacuation of the park, the dinosaurs that lived there were left, for all intents and purposes, to fend for themselves until they either learned how to establish a niche for themselves, died, or had their handlers come back to take care of them. Given the sheer devastation of the main park areas, the slaughter of multiple _Apatosaurus_ herd members, the air bombing of the _Dimorphodon_ flyers onto the tourists in the main streets, and the death of over half the main security team just for the basic outline of the overall collateral damage, it was unlikely that _Jurassic World_ would reopen any time soon. Perhaps, when the public's memories had faded somewhat, grieving had been done, and the total benefits of reopening were weighted against the dangers, there could be a chance in the far future, but now?

In the time that it took for any official action to be even considered for reopening the park, the lagoon's only inhabitant would be starving, weakening. By the time action was taken, death would have sunken in like marine snow fluttering to the sea floor.

Currently, Owen only had three certainties in his life: the park was Ground Zero for the foreseeable future (and thus outside help or first-world advancements were likely out of the question), his pack was alive, and until they were able to hunt and survive at their best again, there would be times where he had to step in for them.

The five of them stepped through the park like wraiths, the _thud thud thud_ footfalls of heavy boots jarring against a background of raptor sickle-claw _tap-tap-tap_ as Owen wove in and out of the abandoned streets with Blue at his hip. Echo hissed at the shattered-glass reflections that popped up from ruined storefronts and street pavement; Charlie, skittish from the lack of activity other than the pack, bolted back and forth across the street, peering into the ravaged restaurants and stores and dashing back with a warble whenever her sisters or Owen was deemed to move too far. Delta flanked Blue from several paces back, head turning this way and that as she took in the destruction.

All the while, a low, dull _shhhhhhhh_ rent the air as Owen dragged the long, scaly body of his catch behind him, backpack straps digging into his shoulders as the bucket of blood inside sloshed noisily. Though they didn't help him move it themselves, he was inwardly grateful that whenever he stopped to rest, Blue simply looked at the others and everyone stopped moving until he began again.

True, it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, but it had enough promise in it that Owen felt it was worth trying out.

Finally, to the relief of his screaming muscles, they reached their destination. Owen stood before the huge doors, pack flanking him on each side, and felt a low burn of grim anticipation unfurl in his gut like some poisonous flower.

"Well, girls," he turned, stared into their eyes, watched Blue snap her jaws and stand tall and proud as a mountain, Charlie chirp and Echo and Delta flex claws in hungry anticipation, "What do you say we hunt us a _Mosasaur_?"


End file.
